No I said, I did nothing. I have nothing to explain for. I can't explain for a killer whether he uses a gun, knife, fists or poison. I did nothing. I am not culpable. You are making the assumption of the left that the means is culpable. This is blaming the gun.
If you do go and read those stories what I described is what you will hear. In a sane world none of these guys would have been released to the supervision of their untrained family members...
Simple fact is, the truth is often a little different than the stories. I ask you one question, do you want a lower bar to have the government strip you of all rights? I don't.
There was a time when the system worked. We didn't have these kinds of crimes and despite anecdotal evidence the people who were in the system belonged there.
Well we have always had crimes of this sort. There have been times poison or explosives were more in favor. We didn't have a 24 hour news cycle though.
I can speak to whether the system was nightmarish or not. I was a psych tech in the CA State Mental Hospital system in the 1960s while I was in college. I worked the T-1 Ward at Stockton. That's the men's admissions and intensive treatment ward. We received patients straight from the back seats of patrol cars from a dozen counties. There was an automatic 72 hour hold. A psychiatrist and the ward staff interviewed and interacted with the patient during that time. If involuntary commitment was deemed necessary a sanity hearing was held before a judge where the staff reports were considered, along with testimony from the patient, his family, and his lawyer. That system worked. The only people who didn't belong there were the ones who were using it to dodge jail time. There were no Jack Nicholson roles to be filled. The only thing nightmarish about it is the reality of the mental illness I encountered, because with a properly functioning system, on that ward, there were no "nice" people. Nice people didn't belong there. They belonged either at home or on some other ward that specialized in whatever their problem was.
If we have a working system why was no one able to get help for Loughner? Everybody around him knew he would go off sooner or later.
This sounds very similar to what is done now, though I guarantee you nightmarish things happened in "treatment." (Because of where knowledge of mental health treatment was at that time.) It also sounds like you have an idealized view of it. Were their people who didn't belong there? almost certainly. What about when you have someone blatantly lying about a slightly eccentric person? It happens. Schizophrenics and people with psychosis are frequently nice, kind, gentle people. I deal with them almost every day. It is only the very rare one I can't get along with. Now don't get me wrong I give forced IMs, and have tackled/pried people off of other people and done all manner of things that are rather unpleasant.
Whoa pal, pump the breaks.. dont let the BATF know about my jorts! (Jean shorts)
I am saying that if we live in a society where freedoms are respected, we ere on the side of giving people freedom and liberty. You can't hold people based on what "everyone knows." There has to be real evidence. I let someone go by law who I knew would commit a crime by morning. But we can't prosecute people for thought crime or what people "know is bound to happen."
